BACKGROUND ART
In considering the safety of passengers in automotive vehicles, modern automotive vehicles are designed to resist side impacts, especially at the door areas. Conventional vehicle doors are typically equipped with a rigid intrusion beam structure or other types of framing to protect vehicle occupants from injuries resulting from side impacts. This practice has generally proven successful in meeting side impact Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).
In FIGS. 1 and 2 of the drawings a conventionally fabricated door assembly 2 is illustrated to include an outer panel 3 and an inner panel 4 which cooperate to form a cavity 5 into which an intrusion beam 6 is disposed. Arrangements such as this tend to consume a relatively large amount of space, thereby limiting the ability of the vehicle designers to package other components, such as the window pane and window regulators, into the cavity 5 vehicle door 2.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the art for a vehicle door assembly having an intrusion beam which does not consume space within the interior of the door assembly to thereby improve the ability with which other components are packaged into the door assembly.